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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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To state that suicide is NOT a selfish act ?

466 replies

Coffeenowplease · 10/08/2013 21:14

Really riled by this. People who commit suicide are ill and by the nature of their illness cannot think rationally so therefore cannot be "selfish" and think of the damage it causes to others.

I am so angry by this I had to make a post just to get it out.

Feel free to discuss.

OP posts:
BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 12/08/2013 15:50

Mum - when DH saw his bro for the last time (on the saturday, he hanged himself on the monday early morning) he said he knew something was wrong but he was in a rush.....they looked at a job together and then DH dropped him home. He says he so wishes he had gone in for a cuppa or something and maybe things would have been different.

You aren't selfish, you weren't to know...none of us were. I know in my heart of hearts that even if DH had gone in with him, the outcome would have been the same. He used to come over to us every friday night for fish and chips....that week he had been ill with a stomach bug so we didn't invite him as we didn't want it........what if...what if..........

It's all so very very sad!

mignonette · 12/08/2013 15:51

FabergeEgg

I would like to share your post with some of my clients if that is okay with you because you express perfectly, my own views in a far more eloquent manner and it will make an interesting discussion point for clients with severe and enduring MI.

How poignant and eloquent your post is.

SoniaGluck · 12/08/2013 15:52

I don't know what to say, mumof2. There are no words, really. Just Flowers.

I have never, ever said this before and I've read some pretty sad things on the internet, but I can't read the screen properly for the tears.

This thread has been terrible, heartbreaking, occasionally uplifting and cathartic. This is going to sound a bit strange but I sort of wish I hadn't starting reading or posting on it. And yet I'm glad I did.

HaveIGotPoosForYou · 12/08/2013 15:54

I don't think suicidal people are necessarily selfish, but the act itself is selfish iyswim.

Also, how it is done is an indicator to me if it's selfish.

On their own, where a police man or woman would find them is a lot less selfish than ODing or hanging oneself where their 12 year old child could find them for example, is selfish - no matter how bad you feel as it's going to mentally affect that person for life.

mumof2teenboys · 12/08/2013 16:01

HaveIGot

My younger son found James. Sam broke into James' flat and found him there, James has hung himself.

Sam takes huge comfort from being the one to find him. He feels that as his only brother, it was right that it was him. They were extremely close and Sam thinks that James' death was private and finding him was private as well.

The aftermath of James' death (his funeral etc) was for all of us who love him. His body being found (I will never get used to saying his body) was for Sam, a family situatio, and he is grateful that he was the one.

No one who chooses to die this way is really thinking about the afterwards. They just want 'now' to be over.

DoubleLifeIsALifeHalved · 12/08/2013 16:58

Thank you everyone on this thread. It's really helped me.

I didn't look at it for ages as was worried they'd be a whole host of yes you are selfish and despise your weakness. Instead it's a thoughtful, painful, but considered thread and so much better than the knee jerk blame I've come to expect.

I am physically very ill, and I hate living in my ruined body and battling day after day after day. The physical stuff is awful, but what actually gets me is the social side of disability. The cruelty and incompetence of society, the commentary about the disgusting remnantes of humanity left at bottom of society, that are dehumanized and hated.

It's the same people who are supposed to help, who are too wrapped up in other things that would be the ones to be all shocked and blaming me if I killed myself. Those are the people who can't see someone disabled as a human, as someone with a right to dignity, needs and as much worth as a healthy person.

It's a horrible vicious circle that I can't say how on the brink I am at all times, as if I do that they'll not help even more as everything I say will be blamed on my mh, instead of desperation at being in the circumstances I am... The ones they could be alleviating. I am locked in a world of cruelty, discrimination and powerlessness. I have more resilience than anyone I know, and yet it's like living in torture.

LookingThroughTheFog · 12/08/2013 17:01

I just have so much sympathy I'm aching for both of you, Mumof2 and Sonia. It's just so awful.

SusanneLinder · 12/08/2013 17:15

I am not going to contribute personal experiences as it is too raw for me, plus I may be "outed". Enough to say-how awful it must be to be soo despairing that you think that's the only way out.

And despite campaigns, there is still so much stigma against mental breakdowns and mental illness that I find quite horrific. Sad.

And despite the increase of mental health ilnesses, we STILL a lack of resources for mental health, not enough MH nurses, and GP's with judgy pants faces on, when people talk about depression.

SoniaGluck · 12/08/2013 17:40

LookingThroughTheFog Thank you.

I must admit what mumof2 said made me feel so much for her. Losing a child is something so devastating that I daren't even begin to imagine how one could cope with it.

Honestly though, as much as I loved my brother, the grief over his death has never been overwhelming because somehow, underneath it all, I was glad to have spent all these years knowing him. I know it's a cliché to say that 'grief is the price we pay for love' but, for me certainly, it is true.

Given any choice in the matter, I would still rather have had the years with my brother followed by grief than not to have had them, IYKWIM.

mignonette · 12/08/2013 17:51

Double the effects of illness upon a persons mental health is so neglected in MH nurse training and post registration too. I have met so many people brought to their knees by the pain and distress they suffer physically, emotionally, socially and psychologically and yet it is such a hidden 'shadow' area of MI with no specialist nurses or knowledge.

I will add your post to my professional education files if that is alright because it is an area I would like to pay more attention to in the future. I will also draw my student nurses attentions to this whole thread as there are some very powerful voices here.

mumof2teenboys · 12/08/2013 18:16

I am so very proud of James, I had 22 amazing, funny, sometimes difficult years with him. He taught me everything I know about love, he forced me to be an adult.

I was only 19 when I had him, we did all our growing up together. He was highly intelligent, very articulate and artistic. He was difficult and troubled and stroppy and hard to help sometimes.

I love him with all my being, I had the best of times with him. I do honestly feel that losing him and the pain we feel is a small price to pay for having had him.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat, I am James' mum. He is my beautiful, amazing blue eyed boy and I am lucky to have had any time at all with him. He was a gift, only lent to me, I had to give him back.

Blondeshavemorefun · 12/08/2013 18:24

my dh committed suicide just under 2.5years ago :(

i dont believe he was selfish, he just couldn't think of another way out - and in his tormented mind he just couldnt see that he was loved and he believed in his darkest deepest moments that myself and his friends and family would be better off without him :(

he suffered severe depression and i think depression is like cancer of the brain, you cant see it, but it is there eating away at that person :(

we had a good life,we both worked, have our own house, no real money or health worries etc, but didnt make any difference :(

inquest put death down to unsound mind, and i feel that was sadly right :(

sausageandorangepickle · 12/08/2013 18:37

I have just been reading all the posts today, and I am sitting here in tears. Perhaps PP's are right - I'm the selfish one to want to keep my DH here with me when he is feeling like that, but we have had a lovely day working on the garden with our kids today, nothing special, just having a laugh and getting muddy together, and I can't believe that not that long ago he would have left us all.

LookingThroughTheFog, and other posters, your posts go a long way to explaining how awful it is to live with that level of MH problems, and the effort it takes to keep going every day.

I guess I am feeling less convinced that it is selfish, having taken everything everyone has said into consideration, although I'm still not sure I could accept it with the grace shown by Mumof2boys or SoniaGluck

monicalewinski · 12/08/2013 19:11

Mumof2boys, the way you write about James and Sam is beautiful. You have brought me to tears and made me feel so incredibly lucky when I look at my 2 young boys - they drive me mad and are at the age when they are thick as thieves one minute and knocking the crap out of each other the next, but the way you write about your boys has made my heart burst for mine.

I keep coming back to read the latest posts - it's not a subject I feel comfortable around and would normally avoid, but there have been such eye opening posts by people really struggling with mental health and by people living with others in that situation and I have learned so much and feel very humbled.

I have nothing of importance to say or add to this thread at all, other than that I have been really moved by it.

fabergeegg · 12/08/2013 19:50

Here's another poster in tears, marvelling at what this discussion has become. If only there was a way to tap into all this kindness and understanding in real life. I have such sympathy and admiration for those who have told their stories here. Even when the words are heart-breaking, simply hearing these voices makes hope easier to believe in. Thank you all for that.

Migonette - by all means.

RoxyFox211 · 12/08/2013 20:07

Yanbu. Talk about kicking someone when they're down. I think an inappropriate level of guilt is probably the biggest contributor to my depression. If things got so bad I wanted to top myself hearing how selfish I am would probably push me in to it.

LookingThroughTheFog · 12/08/2013 20:38

I just wanted to say thank you to particularly Mumof2, Sonia (and other's who have are grieving) and Sausage.

The way I feel about it has changed too. I cannot possibly state that now I've seen your stories, I'd never think of it again, because it doesn't work that way. If I couldn't keep myself from it for my children's sake, I think it's unlikely that anything else would stop me. However, I can honestly state that your stories have worked their way into my heart, and they may go some way to being extra protection for me. So thank you.

The way I see it today is that suicide, as a concept, is like a big prism, and each person standing on their own, unique side of it can only see how things are reflected through their side. You can have some idea, some indication, you might even be able to imagine it, but you can only stand where your two feet are. That doesn't mean that the other sides of the prism are less real than your own. I think, perhaps, that if we keep talking about the prism, and keep trying to envisage the rest of it, calmly and honestly, then perhaps it becomes more solid and real, and perhaps then, easier to conquer. One of us, singularly, is faced with a glass wall. All of us, together, might be able to take a mallet to it.

That was more poetic in my head. I'm struggling to gather it all into a coherent thought. But still; thank you, all of you, for sharing with such kindness and such grace. All of you (especially you, Sausage, who suggested you have less grace; you have it in spades).

MrsFrederickWentworth · 12/08/2013 20:44

Reading this thread on the train to work this morning, a young man jumped in front of the train coming the other way.

I hope he had had the support this thread has shown.

LookingThroughTheFog · 12/08/2013 20:54

Oh, and Sausage, I don't know if it helps at all, but thinking about the nice day that your husband would have given up, but in the moment (in my experience only), there really isn't that choice out there. Nothing exists beyond the blackness. If you're lucky (and I generally have been), you can think 'I've been in the blackness before, and it's ended, so it should end this time too...' but I can't see beyond it, either in front or behind. There are no plans that can be made, there are no people that you could speak to, there's just you alone in the blackness.

One day I remember there was 6 hours of it. 6 hours of thinking 'if I can just make it out of this minute, we'll reassess then...' minute by minute of this unending blackness. That was a hard day. I had no capability of thinking 'but DS has that party to go to at the weekend - I need to take him...' or 'but DD has that assembly she wants me to see...' Or even 'I quite liked last Tuesday; maybe that will happen again...' All of these things are abstract in the extreme - impossible. There is nothing; just the blackness from the beginning of time until the end of time, just blackness.

Like I say, that was me controlled (though that term's laughable now I think of it). But at least at that point I was able to hang on to the idea that it would probably end if I could just hang on long enough. When it switched from that to feeling that it would never end, and I would not be able to hold on, that was when I was in real trouble.

mignonette · 12/08/2013 20:58

The true meaning of 'Grace Under Pressure' is here on this thread. And love too.

TheApprentice · 13/08/2013 08:09

This thread has moved me more than any other in 7 years on Mumsnet, perhaps because it deals with a subject that resonates so much with me (see my earlier post).

I always remember the words of Libby Purves who lost her son Nick to suicide when he was just a young man. She said "He stayed as long as he could." Its quite obvious that selfish is the last thing she thought he was.

Oblomov · 13/08/2013 08:42

I do not have any experience of suicide One poster said that she did not think posters with no experience should post. I do not agree.
I think this has been a very good thread. I appreciate it is extremely upsetting for some. I am touched, but not upset. And I have learnt a lot.
I hope it does not get pulled.

mumof2teenboys · 13/08/2013 09:33

TheApprentice

Thats exactly how I feel about James, he stayed for as long as was possible. He was tired, frightened and broken by his illness. He wanted peace, how is that selfish?

He wrote in his journal that one of his reasons for staying was Sam, he called Sam 'his rock' He knew that leaving would destroy Sam and he didn't want to do that. He stayed long after he wanted to go for his brother.

When he did finally decide that he couldn't stay any longer, he knew that he had tried to be here for Sam, but his pain and fear were greater than his worries about Sam.

He stayed for longer than he wanted to because of love and selflessness.

FiveLeavesLeft · 13/08/2013 09:44

This thread has been so affecting ? at times very difficult and painful to read but revelatory to me in many ways. I?m finding it difficult to think about much else today. Mumof2teens and Sonia, you write with such clarity and dignity. What you say about grief and love and letting go, I don?t know what to add really but your words are so consoling. Sausages You are not selfish but coping with a difficult situation with empathy and courage. LookingThroughTheFog you have such insight and I have found your posts so resonant. You are an inspiration. What you say about being at one side of a prism makes perfect sense; I often talked about my mum appearing as if behind glass when she was at her most ill. Susanne the points you raise about stigma and lack of resources are spot on. mignonette you speak with great compassion and wisdom. I?m really interested to hear more about your work with mental health professionals. My mum was one of a small team of people with personal experience of severe mental illness employed by her local university to deliver a module on mental illness. I don?t know how common this is but hearing directly from her and her colleagues was something that seemed to have a really profound impact on the students they taught. Coffee just - thank you.

everlong · 13/08/2013 09:50

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